


Antennae Torment

by TheProphetMich



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Torture, Antennae, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, The Tallest are pretty cruel in this, Torture, consider yourself warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheProphetMich/pseuds/TheProphetMich
Summary: On Irk, antennae clipping is a common punishment. The result is a deaf, disoriented Irken who is shunned by society until their antennae grow back to an acceptable length. Zim has experienced this practice first hand. Many times.Or 3 times Zim had his antennae cut off as punishment and 1 time he asked Dib to do it for him.
Relationships: Dib & Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 275





	Antennae Torment

It’s after the Tallest pass out the SIR, or in Zim’s case GIR, units and before the newly sanctioned invaders are shooed off towards their ships that Tallest Purple asked them all to gather around. “Someone’s getting clipped. Three guesses as to who.”

Zim snickered. There was nothing like watching an Irken mutilate themself in the name of the empire. It was odd to be punishing someone freshly awarded with Invader status, but who was Zim to complain about a show? He instinctually looked around for the guilty party, startled to find almost every eye on him. Even the Tallest were looking down at him. “Me? But what did I do?”

Red started counting on his fingers. “Let’s see. You caused Horrible Painful Overload Day. Then you caused Horrible Painful Overload Day part 2.”

“Countless of explosions,” Purple continued. “Several other power outages that were probably your fault. You ruined Operation Impending Doom 1. You left your position at Foodcourtia—”

“Need we go on,” Red cut in.

Zim sputtered. “But I was already punished for those!” He tapped his chin. “Well, most of those.“

Red narrowed his eyes at him. “We’re giving you this... opportunity to prove yourself as an ‘invader,’ but you still left your post and stole a voot cruiser to get here. What kind of Tallest would we be if we let you get away with that scotch free?”

Zim glanced down. “Merciful ones.”

“Exactly,” Red said. “We’d be laughed at.” He pointed towards the group of invaders. “You. Get us the shears.”

Invader Spleen scurried off. Zim chanced a look at the others. Most were eyeing him and smirking, excited to see the ritual. Zim glared at them and ripped the shears out of Spleen’s hand when he offered them to Zim.

Zim opened and shut the tool to test it. “How much would you like me to cut off, my Tallest?”

Red and Purple exchanged a look. “From the base,” Purple said.

“But that’ll take ages to grow back,” Zim argued.

Purple got in his face. “Are you questioning my authority? Because we can find someone else to go on this secret mission of yours.”

Zim’s eyes bulged. “No, my Tallest! Merely suggesting. From the base, then. Very good.” Zim was no stranger to getting his antennae trimmed. He had never been the most well behaved Irken, especially as a maturing smeet, but the academy never forced him to trim more than half a single antenna. It was humiliating and painful and it had thrown him off balance, but he’d still been able to function after the fact.

Zim held the shears up, letting the pivot point rest on his head. It was just one antenna. He’d most likely still be able to function.

Zim shut his eyes and brought the blades together.

He screamed. He dropped to the ground and rolled around, cupping the exposed nerve with both his hands. The nub was aflame. His head was aflame. He couldn’t hear much from his left side, but those on his right were cackling. A few were on their knees with laughter while others threw their heads back and pointed at him. Purple and Red were leaning on each other, barely keeping upright.

Zim settled into a whimper and waited for the laughter to die down. He’d be alone on a ship soon enough. That meant he’d get to avoid the disapproving stares of other Irkens and the questioning of what he did to deserve the severance of a whole antenna.

Tallest Red ordered Zim to stand and he did his best to do so. The room tilted under his feet and Zim swayed, falling into Invader Skoodge, who stepped back and shoved Zim off. It wasn’t acceptable to show anything but contempt for someone in Zim’s situation. Especially in front of the Tallest.

Zim fell to the ground. He took a breath, then managed to climb to his knees. From there, one foot after the other, he stood and stayed standing. The shears were on the ground a few feet away. His clipped antenna was under the toe of his shoe.

“Good, good,” Tallest Red said at half volume. “Now the other one.”

It took Zim awhile, after the other invaders dispersed, to roll and stumble and crawl to his voot. He’d sent GIR ahead of him to warm up the cruiser before the Tallest had announced the cutting ceremony, so he was alone in his struggle. Red and Purple were behind him smiling and laughing as they followed him down the hallways.

Zim couldn’t hear a word they said, but their lips kept moving. Sometimes they’d get close to his head to speak their words. Sometimes they’d flick the nubs just to see Zim wither and scream at the touch.

Zim tried to keep his composure. The Tallest were just playing. Their undivided attention was a rare thing to have and Zim had it. He should, he did, appreciate it.

Tallest Purple gripped what was left of his stalk and tried to drag him by it. It was a short piece, not much to hold on to, but he managed a hold strong enough and ran down the hallway, Zim dragging behind. Like an animal, Zim fought and clawed at the hand. He flailed. He tried to getaway. It was dishonorable, his actions against his Tallest, but pain blinded him.

Red punted him down the hallway to put him back in his place. For a few moments, Zim laid there relieved and unbothered. Then a hand closed around the remaining bit of stalk.

Zim broke into tears.

The Tallest lost interest in him after a few hours. He ventured through the last of the hallways in peace and managed to climb into his ship.

GIR had done nothing to get the voot ready for take-off, but Zim didn’t have it in him to question the robot. He wouldn’t be able to hear the explanation for a good while anyway.

Zim let himself collapse as soon as he got the voot on course towards the mystery planet. He’d always dreamed of becoming an invader and even though his way had been unorthodox and costly, it was worth every ounce of pain he got for it.

***

By the time he reached Urth, Zim’s antennae were almost back to their original height. The wig of his human disguise irritated them, an itch impossible to scratch, but aside from that they seemed to be good as new.

If it was a bit harder to hear things since the incident, well, Earth’s atmosphere was probably to blame for that.

***

As much as Zim hated the smelly stink planet, it was a relief to be away from Irken company. His peers had never appreciated Zim’s brilliance and any Irken of higher height and status could order him to clip a bit of antenna as punishment.

It happened to Zim frequently.

As an invader, Zim’s only constant contact was with his Tallest. It was through a screen and Zim could somewhat filter what they did and didn’t see of his plans. His antennae were, for the most part, safe.

But Zim had angered them.

It was all the Dib’s fault. Zim’s plan to bring the Tallest to Earth to witness as Zim released a brain-eating parasite on the human race would’ve gone without a hitch if Dib hadn’t used Tak’s ship to interfere and take control of the Massive. The ordeal ended with the brain-eating parasite on Zim’s own head and two furious Tallest, who called him a few days after the incident.

Zim wasn’t quite sure why, but they demanded he cut off his antennae. The more Zim questioned and argued against the punishment, the more they shouted.

Zim searched the lab, Red and Purple watching him closely from the screen, until he found a pair of scissors.

It wasn’t a clean cut. Unlike the shears, one open-close motion did nothing more than nick the appendage and cause him pain. He snipped at it several times, tears springing from his eyes as he howled. “Hang on, let me find something better.”

Red and Purple had their faces pressed to the screen. “No, keep going,” Purple said.

“Yeah,” Red snickered. “You’re halfway there, Zim, since when do you give up on anything?”

Zim obeyed. The sight of his antenna, bent and shredded, churned his stomach, but he kept at it even as his vision blurred. The Tallest taunted him for crying, but their voices were more static than anything. Finally, it fell to the floor.

Zim kicked it out of sight as he braced himself against his workbench. His body was covered in a layer of sweat and he was panting heavily.

Red shouted his name several times before Zim found the energy to look up. “No more,” Zim said. “Please.”

Purple’s teeth clenched. “No.”

Zim’s hands shook as he grabbed his remaining antenna and held it still against the onslaught of dull scissor blades. Halfway through, he tossed the scissors against the wall and wailed.

Red and Purple laughed tears into their eyes.

Zim crossed the room, hand on the wall to keep his balance, and retrieved the scissors. He turned around to find that Red had typed something onto the screen, but Zim’s vision was too fuzzy. He made it halfway across the room before the words made sense. “Yank it off the rest of the way.”

Zim swallowed. He wanted to throttle them, but these were his Tallest. They wouldn’t be doing this to him if he hadn’t made a huge mistake, as unsure as he was about what he did wrong.

He grabbed the stalk, whimpered at the contact, and yanked.

It came off in his hand and Zim was left to bellow his voice raw. A high pitched ring was all that sounded through his mind.

When he looked up, the screen was dark and his Tallest were gone.

***

Zim sprawled out on the couch, ice pack pressed to the nubs of irritated flesh, and died.

He wasn’t really dead, of course, but he was too weak to move and too weak to keep his eyes opened. It deprived him of yet another sense and it felt like he’d stopped existing altogether.

The ice pack grew warm. Zim noticed every once in a while, but sitting up even the slightest bit made him nauseous and his shouts for GIR, if he was shouting at all, did nothing.

Zim decided it lacked importance.

***

A while later, someone shook Zim. It shifted the warm ice pack directly onto the nerve and he shot up to shout at GIR. Human hands latched onto his shoulders and Zim forced his eyes opened.

Dib was in his face. Zim tried to shove him off, but that took energy he didn’t really have. He shouted for him to leave, relieved that he could feel his vocal cords vibrate.

Dib’s lips flapped. “Talk slower,” Zim said, paying careful attention to their movements.

It wasn’t until Dib over pronunciated, nodding his head with each syllable, that Zim made out “What happened to you?”

“It’s none of your business, Dib stink.”

Dib looked up at the ceiling and said something like “Computer help visuals please.” The monitor turned on a moment later, words appearing as Dib spoke. “Really? It took you that long to read my lips?”

“You try translating your smelly language into my superior one with just your eyes,” Zim shot back.

“Stop shouting,” Dib said.

“Get out,” was all Zim replied before turning to face the back of the couch. Zim didn’t expect it to work since he was vulnerable. Dib would probably use the opportunity to plant more cameras or something, but as long as he didn’t pick him up and cart him off for an autopsy Zim deemed interacting with him a waste of energy.

A while passed. Something cold touched Zim’s back. He sat up, eyes wide. Dib held out a fresh ice pack.

Zim snatched it from the Dib’s hand and gently pressed it to an injured stalk. He sunk back down, moaning in relief.

Dib took the warm one and headed to the kitchen with it. Zim kept an eye on him this time. He opened and closed the freezer then passed by the couch on his way to the door. “Wait,” Zim called. How long had the Dib been there? Now that he felt a little less dead it seemed stupid and lazy of Zim to have let the Earth child wander around unattended. “What did you do to my base?”

Dib frowned. “Investigated. Why’d you cut off your antenna, Zim?”

Zim stared.

Dib shook his head and walked towards the door.

“Wait!”

Dib threw his hands. “What now?”

Zim held his gaze. “I don’t know.” Dib was his enemy. It shouldn’t mean anything that he checked on Zim, but it was more consideration than an Irken would show.

Later, when moving didn’t take as much effort, he searched his base. There weren’t any wayward cameras, but his antennae and the scissors he used to cut them with were gone.

Zim should’ve been upset at the missing DNA since it was Dib and it would come back to haunt him at some point, but couldn’t find it in himself to care.

***

Irkens were supposed to be destructive and Zim would admit that maybe, at times, he got carried away, but it was better to be too destructive than not enough when it came to his people. That was how he got his position in military research.

He loved it. He had access to all the latest technology and all the labs and materials he’d ever need. They gave him assignments, which he excelled at, and he could create whatever he wanted in his free time.

Tallest Miyuki’s death had been an accident. 

That wouldn’t matter if his association with the event was found out, but no one but the eaten and the dismembered knew it was his fault. Zim made sure.

He’d forgotten about it, in all honesty, until his existence evaluation revealed his perspective of the event. His Tallest swooped in as the cables dropped him to the floor. “Almighty Miyuki was eaten by a giant blob because of you?!”

Zim cowered. Even as he threw up some blatant lie, he knew he was in for it. If the trial didn’t kill him, his Tallest would make him pay. 

And by the miracle that was his defective PAK, Zim survived. His terror dissipated as he was granted ten minutes to fly the Massive just for being his incredible self.

But he wasn’t completely off the hook. As soon as he was forced to relinquish the controls, the Tallest dried their tears and stood over him, shears in hand.

Zim gulped. His antennae twitched and tingled. “Eh. Listen, as the Most Incredible Irken Even—“

Purple wound his arms back and lobbed Zim in the head with the shears. Zim found himself dazed on the floor, head pounding. He tried to stand.

Purple stood over him, shear blades jabbing his chest to keep him down. “Listen, Defect. I don’t care what the Control Brains say—“

Red grabbed his arm. “Purple!”

“Shut up! I don’t care what they say, Zim, you’re defective! So defective you drove them insane! Do you understand that?”

Zim wasn’t sure he understood anything, with his brain swelling like it was, but he nodded. The motion made him nauseous.

“They’ll realize it one day, Zim, and when they do they’ll correct their mistake.”

Tallest or not, what Purple was openly claiming counted as insubordination. Red looked between Zim and Purple, worrying his lower lip. “You’re the mistake, Zim. In case that wasn’t clear.”

The shears lifted from his chest. Zim stood, reaching for the tool. Purple hugged them to his chest. “I’m doing it.”

“But.” That wasn’t how the ritual worked! Zim was supposed to cut his own antennae! It showed his continued loyalty to the Empire! His willingness to obey! “It was an accident,” Zim said. “Almighty Miyuki’s death. I didn’t mean to— That creature had a mind of its own!”

Red scoffed. “We don’t care, Zim.” 

Zim looked around the control room, eyes catching the twenty or so Irkens working to pilot the Massive. “Let Zim cut his own antennae!”

Red grabbed Zim’s antennae and yanked him up so they were eye level, his feet dangling. “Maybe if it was one Tallest, we’d be able to write it off as an accident. But two? C’mon, Zim, we aren’t dumb.”

Zim struggled to grab Red’s wrist. To pull his body up and relieve the tension. “Zim would never intentionally harm his Tallest!” He got a hold of the arm gripping him. Red shook him until Zim’s hand slipped off. “Besides, it worked in your favor, didn’t it? Now you two are Tallest just like you’ve always wanted.”

Red spun him like a windmill and sent him flying across the room for that one. He smashed into a control panel, denting the metal. The Irken operator backed away as Zim rolled to the floor, the busted knobs and levers clattering around him.

His Tallest closed in. “Look what you’ve done now, Zim.” Zim covered his head, expecting violence. Instead, Red plopped down next to him, back against the control panel, and picked him up. “You got blood on the controls.”

Purple sat next to Red and Zim was set between them. The entire crew of the Massive was gawking at them. At Zim. They were out of focus, but their wide, multicolored eyes gave them away. Zim did his best to glare, but his gaze loosened within moments of making an attempt.

Red pinched the tip of Zim’s left antenna. A pinprick feeling shot through the whole stalk, intensifying until Zim hissed. Red laughed. “They haven’t even fully healed since the last time.”

Where were the shears? Where were they? Zim spun to face the Tallest, kicking as if he could propel his body away. “I can do it! I’m willing!”

Red passed Zim off to Purple. “Sit still. That’s an order, Zim.”

Purple gave Zim a malicious grin, gripped his left antenna with both fists, and snapped it.

Zim screeched a full two octaves above speaking range. Red and Purple flinched. “Dear Irk, you’re loud,” Red said. He smirked at Purple. “I bet 500 monies I can make him scream even louder than that.”

“You’re on,” Purple said. “Someone! You,” he pointed to a pilot. “Bring us a loudness reading device thing!”

The Tallest took turns breaking, tearing, and prodding his antennae, shears forgotten on the floor. Zim did his best to cooperate. He did his best to sit still and take it. The crew members stared when he screamed, their eyes glazed and their faces pale. As if they pitied him.

Zim needed no one's pity.

But he did need to scream. He felt the strain of his voice more than he heard it, but still they continued with their game. Zim’s resolve broke and he fought against them with his limbs, but his Tallest pinned him all too easy.

It was a laser that fully severed his left antenna.

Zim’s vision bled red. His PAK legs busted loose, knocking Red and Purple away with force. How dare they! How DARE they? This was not the ritual! This was torture and Zim would not stand for it!

Red recovered first, his PAK limbs emerging to pin Zim to the floor.

But being short had its advantages and the ability to slip through the openings in an opponent's defense was one of them. Red missed him by inches, giving Zim the chance to sprint down the corridor. Towards the bay his voot was parked in. Away from his Tallest.

Exhaustion made Zim’s memory skip. He remembered running. He remembered static and panting and the feeling of being pursued, but that might’ve been the blood pumping his brain meats. He remembered his cruiser and pushing buttons and hurtling towards space, his entire frame shaking. He expected a space fight he wouldn’t be able to focus for, but the Massive’s giant lasers never turned towards him. The little ships following the big one didn’t break away to pursue him.

Not visibly, at least. They must be stalking him just beyond his ship’s sensors. His ship was old and small and not as advanced. Zim propped himself up on the controls, but his vision spotted with the effort to stand.

He slumped onto the seat. The voot’s cushion clung to his cheek when he tried to lift his head. He had directly disobeyed his Tallest. They would never let that slide.

Even as he broke Earth’s atmosphere it felt like the Massive, or a ship sent by the Massive, was hot on his tail.

There wasn’t one, but there would be soon. Purple was right; the Control Brains had declared Zim defective and the Control Brains were never wrong. It was only a matter of time before he was sent for and destroyed.

He stashed the voot in its hanger and rushed to the bathroom. There weren’t any screens in the bathroom. There wasn’t any advanced tech in the bathroom. The Control Brains could not spy on him in the bathroom.

He had the computer delete any and all footage of Zim coming home and waited. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to let a stealth team of Irkens kidnap him under the pretense of a surprise party. Never again.

***

Time passed. Zim regained bits of hearing and bits of smell in his left antenna as it lengthened centimeter by slow centimeter.

His right antenna remained as split and as skinned as it had been when he’d escaped the Massive. A simple twitch or bump had Zim curling into himself and moaning. And moving his antennae was as natural as blinking.

The left one was almost two inches tall when Zim realized he’d need to trim the injured one for it to heal. He ordered GIR to steal the neighbor’s garden shears, but getting the robot to focus on a task was difficult enough on a regular day.

Eventually, GIR managed. The shears, smaller than the ones on the Massive but larger than regular scissors, ended up in front of the toilet Zim sat in. His hands trembled as he picked up the tool, bile rising to his throat.

Zim had watched the neighbor man clip down his rose bush with these shears. Zim tried to focus on that instead of the ritual as he brought the blades to his antenna. The metal brushed his head.

He flung the shears away. They clattered from wall to tile and Zim howled at them. “Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” He fell out of the toilet trying to attack the tool, screaming in pain and anguish. He couldn’t walk straight, let alone exact his revenge.

He fell into the tile and stayed there. The toilet was safer since it had a lid to hide under and a knob to flush him away from his base if Irkens were sent to capture him, but it was too far away. He didn’t have enough energy to crawl back to it.

Zim existed on the floor for a long while, eyes closed. He heard noises, but they were unfocused and static-like and Zim found he didn’t care if he was carted off to the Massive to face his Tallest. 

The bathroom door opened. “Zim?”

Oh. Zim wondered if an autopsy was a better or worse fate. “What do you want?”

“You’ve been gone awhile,” Dib said. Zim flinched. The human’s voice was right above him. He could kick Zim if he wanted to. “Can you hear me okay?”

Zim grunted.

“Okay. Good.” His voice was... gentle, almost. “Do you know how long it’s been?”

Zim tried to think. He’d been kidnapped and taken to his existence evaluation. That alone had taken awhile and after that...

“Seven months, Zim. You’ve been gone seven months. It’s been pretty boring without you bothering me. GIR took over the world for a bit, did he tell you?”

“Don’t joke, Dib stink.” Seven months of inactivity. Useless! Zim squirmed around on the tile in frustration, his injured antenna pulsing. It had to go. Zim had to destroy it!

His eyes fell on the shears.

He started hyperventilating.

It was so stupid! One snip would ease his suffering, but it sickened him. He was so tired of pain, but was Zim not deserving of pain? The Tallest seemed to think he was. Their laughter echoed his skull. If they saw him now, choking on his tears...

A hand rolled Zim over so he was face up. “Zim? Hey, hey, calm down.”

“Don’t touch me,” Zim shouted. He sat up, but gravity attacked him. He laid back down. “Stop standing!”

Dib actually sat down. “I’m not touching you. I’m not standing. Just. Tell me what’s going on, okay?”

“No.” Zim rolled over so Dib couldn’t see his tears. Zim could spend the rest of his existence on the floor, pain eating his antenna. Eventually, he would waste away. What a mercy that would be.

Human hands shoved themselves under Zim’s armpits. Incomprehensible noise tore through Zim’s throat as the Dib pulled him into a sitting position against his chest. “Take a deep breath, Zim.”

Zim found himself complying.

“Good, can you do that again?”

He did, wheezing a bit in the process.

“One more.”

It really did help. Zim kept breathing, the pace normalized. Dib kept his hold on him. It felt nothing like being in the lap of his Tallest, though it probably should.

“That’s better,” Dib said. “I learned that in therapy, figured it could work for you. It increases oxygen flow and... do you even breathe oxygen?”

Zim tilted his head back to stare at Dib’s jaw. “Why are you helping me?”

“I dunno. You looked pathetic, so...”

Zim frowned. “Zim knows.” He was weak and completely at the Dib’s mercy. Zim wasn’t frightened by that but knew he should be. “What’re you gonna do with me?”

“We could talk about what happened to you.”

“Heh. You don’t want your autopsy?”

“Maybe later.”

Silence took over. Zim closed his eyes. “I displeased my Tallest.”

“Your leaders did this to you?”

Dib was most likely referencing the antennae, not the mental break down, but both were correct. “What they did was appropriate. They are tall and Zim is short.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Dib said.

“Yes it does.” Zim took another deep breath. “Tell me, Dib beast. Do you wish to hurt Zim?”

A long pause. “Why?”

“My right antenna is damaged. I need you to cut it off so it can grow back properly.”

Dib’s hand nudged Zim’s head to the side. Zim’s eyes shot open. He captured Dib’s wrist in his claws.

“Ouch! Zim!” Dib tried to pry his fingers loose. “I’m just trying to get a better look!”

Zim tightened his grip. “Kill me.”

“What?”

“If you’re going to play games, then kill me.” Zim had tormented Dib more times than he could count. What was stopping Dib from making the task as excruciating as possible?

Dib blinked at him. “I’m just turning your head. Deep breaths, alright?”

Zim let go of his wrist. Dib tilted Zim’s head to examine the broken antenna. Then he leaned forward and grabbed the shears. Zim’s breath hitched. “One snip at the base,” he said. “Do not touch or yank or twist or pull.”

“Okay,” Dib said. He opened the shears.

Zim cowered. “Wait!”

Dib wrapped his arm around Zim’s head and held him still. Zim thrashed. He clawed and screamed and worked his jaw for something to chomp down on.

A single snip.

Pain spotted his vision. Zim flailed, but exhaustion was quick to take over. He slumped against Dib’s chest.

Dib held him while Zim panted into his shirt. “Can you hear me?”

Zim grunted.

Dib stood, Zim still pinned to his chest. “God, were you always this light?”

Zim’s eyes shot wide. “Put me down!”

Dib walked out of the bathroom. “Relax. I’m setting you up on the couch.”

“No!”

It was too late. They were exposed. The cameras could see him. The Control Brains, if they were looking, could see him. And why wouldn’t they be watching? 

Dib set him on the couch and retrieved an ice pack from the freezer. He handed it to Zim, who took care while placing it on his antenna.

Dib sat on the arm of the couch, feet on the cushion across from Zim’s legs. “Look at me, Zim. You can’t let them keep doing this to you.”

Zim glanced at the monitor across from the couch. There was a camera there so the Tallest could see his image when they communicated. It was off, or so it appeared, but they were right in front of it. “What do you care?”

“I guess I shouldn’t,” Dib said. “Look, I don’t know much about your leaders, but this looks like abuse to me.”

Zim glanced at the monitor again.

Dib followed his line of sight. “The TV’s off, why do you keep looking at it?”

“Zim is a loyal invader and I will not speak ill of my Tallest.” He wrung his hands together. “However, they are rather upset with me. I will not ignore them if they open up communications, but until they do I have elected to... give them space, if you will.”

Dib leaned his elbows onto his knees. “So your mission’s on hold.”

“Of course not!” He bit his lip. “I am simply allowing myself time to heal and waiting for further instruction. If they assume me dead due to how severe my injuries were then, well...” Zim shrugged.

“You do that.” Dib grabbed the TV remote from the side table and turned it on.

Zim narrowed his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Gaz is at home hogging the TV. You can pick the show.” He paused. “Does the sound bother you? We can mute it and put the screen caps on. Computer?”

Zim stared him down as Dib flipped through the channels, words appearing on the screen. “Earth is still mine. The Tallest may not be speaking to me, but that doesn’t mean—“

Dib handed him the remote. “We’ll figure it out later. Right now we’re watching TV.”

Zim grumbled but switched it to one of his favorite channels. he wouldn't be paying much attention to it, but it beat sitting alone in the toilet.


End file.
